There has been a number of articles which have been written on, the low rate of public participation in the environmental impact assessment. Many articles highlighted different challenges associated with this issue, while some have been written on a personal level, which fails to cover the prominent things, associated with the failure of environmental impact assessment practices. This article has examined study, which has been conducted by Hans Wiklund, in 2011, for understanding the main cause of non-participation. The studies focus on a cases which has happened in Sweden, and which reveals an unknown aspect about the environmental impact assessment system. The article highlights some reasons, for non-participation of the public which are mostly personal while some also indicates the mismanagement of the management team of environment impact assessment.
This journal article review, has been written, to display a wider understanding on the issue of the environmental impact assessment practices and also to bring forward the importance of participation in environmental impact assessment activities. But the main objective of this article is to investigate the uncovered aspects which are associated with the low participation of the citizen in the activities or practices performed by the environmental impact assessment system.
In this article, while understanding the different aspects of a particular study together, there are certain basic causes of non-participation, which have been stated. The main issue includes education, trust, and unawareness, and some of the secondary issues are age, income and few more. The article also informs about the environmental impact assessment system and how it is responsible for non-participation, but first let’s focus on the positive highlights of this article (Bond and Stewart, 2002).
The article has been structured perfectly, which starts from the research design of an important case, which brings forward some issues of low participation, then the non-participation reasons has been stated and then the conclusions and suggestions have been mentioned. The article has selected a very prominent topic of waste incineration plant, which will affect the environmental area of a housing society (Bruns et al., 2018). This is a very big issue, for the people who are living near the site where the plant establishment will be conducted and the low rate of public participation in this project, makes the issue of low participation a major challenge. The article also highlights the need, to conduct more studies which will further investigate in detail, the real cause for low citizen participation. The article has successfully highlighted the structural shortcomings and certain problems related to socioeconomic issues too (Curini and Jou, 2016).
The article highlights a situation about the establishment of the waste plant and people near the plant, who will be affected the most, will be most eager to participate. But this has been proven wrong, as the questionnaires which were sent, had a very low response, which made this issue even more serious (Davids et al., 2018). The article mentioned a number of reasons which have been stated by the citizens, which includes the trust issue, the issue of not knowing about the environment impact assessment, the issue of not knowing about the hearings and the meeting. Also the late participation of the citizens in the environment impact assessment process and the issue which generates due to education (Eckerd, 2016).
The article has successfully stated the importance of trust. The trust can be of different levels, but due to the previous experience where trust was hampered, it clearly justifies the failing of practices involving public participation. The article also brings forward the strong impact of trust breakage on the citizens (Enick and Moore, 2007).
The article also successfully highlights the mismanagement of the environment impact assessment system. It has been stated that a major percentage of the citizen did not have adequate information about the system, which is a shocking truth and completely justifies the low rate of public participation (Felicetti, 2014). Also, people who are aware about the system do not have any information about their practices, hearings, and meetings. This reduces the interest of the citizen and ultimately, accounts for the failure of the high participatory ideals (Hunsberger, Gibson and Wismer, 2005).
The article also brings forward, an issue which is one of the main reasons for sacking the practices due to non-participation, which is the involvement of the citizens at a very late stage. The late participation of the citizens has been explained in details and the examples provided clearly helps in understanding the state in a much better way. The direct involvement of the citizen and the system happens during the hearing time (Keen and Sullivan, 2005). This late involvement does not help in building trust and the citizen are unable to understand their importance, which also justifies certain replies of the people who stated that they have no interest in participating. The questionnaires are also sent through the mails and the citizens are not even persuaded once to conduct their duties properly, by responding to them. The article successfully justifies all these main concerns which are the main cause of failure, which is due to low public participation or non-participation (Martin and Claibourn, 2013).
Only few studies have been conducted on the issue of low participation of the public in the practices of environmental impact assessment, some of the studies have brought the issue of education as one of the reasons for low participation. Studies have stated that people with less education are the reason for non-participation, as they lack the intellectual abilities to understand the importance of practices conducted by the environmental impact assessment system (Morrison-Saunders and Bailey, 2000). But the article provides some of the readings which clearly display some shocking details and informs about the surprisingly high percentage of people belonging to the non-participating category, who are well educated people with graduate degrees. The article clearly rules out a concept according to which, a high degree of education means a high degree of participation. This has also changed many people’s opinions and also shows a different side of the society and also the system, which have time and again blamed the less educated people for low participation. This also gives a certain level of understanding regarding the environmental impact assessment system and their drawbacks which are the main cause for non-participation. The article also informs that many of the citizens complained about not being invited to the hearings which is another fault of the system (Chang, 2018).
On one side, where the article has successfully mentioned and explained the main causes of the non-participation, there are many areas which it has missed and which were very important for the better understanding of the issue. There are a few weak points of this article which have not been explored and thus it lacks the ability to show a different side of the system and the citizen. The article has highlighted only a few new issues, while the rest have been previously explored in other studies. The main aim was to explore the different uninvestigated issues, which the articles failed to do.
The study of Hans Wiklund was conducted in 2011, which is way back. The time has changed and along with it the citizens and their opinions. They should have used a recent study, which was conducted in the last five years. The information gained, will be less worthy due to such a huge gap. Time is moving with a great pace and the thoughts of the people are changing rapidly. Also, the study of Hans Wiklund has not been properly utilized which would have helped in finding out some different undiscovered issues. Also, the different studies, are very similar in nature and thus failed to bring something new to the article (Chukwuma Sr., 2007).
A lot has been mentioned and discussed about the environmental impact assessment system. The system has been blamed for everything, which has also been successfully proven. But there has been no part of this article which explained the system’s challenges and also the problems which they face due to the citizens. The citizens are the uninvestigated part, who are also responsible for non-participation, which is due to their own fault. The article does mention few small reasons such as being busy, but the article has not provided any strong reasons against the citizen.
The article also failed to give any strong suggestion which would have been helpful in controlling the situation in a better manner. The article approach is one sided and it is built around the drawbacks of the administration and nothing more. The article’s main purpose was to explore the unexplored part of the issue, which has not been conducted effectively by the article. The article should have been attempted after gaining, the ample amount of knowledge which is needed for understanding this issue in a much deeper form (Negev et al., 2013).
The article should have also included some feedbacks, from the administration and the citizen, which would have brought a different side to explore and this activity would have also cleared a number of allegations which have been imposed on either side. The article should also have included the most recent survey results which would have given latest percentage rates and through them, new strategies and plans would have been thought of and implemented.
Conclusion
Though the article is a good attempt at understanding the reasons behind the low participation rates and also states some examples which have been clearly defined, along with a strong elaboration, the article fails to fulfill its prime objective. There is not a single addition which is new and have not been discussed in the earlier studies. Another, thing which prevents this article from building a strong body, is that many of the issues have been dealt in an ad hoc manner, which is another drawback. The article also states the emergence of more studies which will help in handling the issue of low or non-participation of the citizens in the practices which are conducted by the environmental impact assessment system. The article also notifies certain shocking information about the society and their different mindsets. The article, on a whole, is a piece of information which highlights the inefficiency of the system, but empirical research should be conducted on the citizens who are considered as the rational actors and holds a very important position on this issue, which is still uninvestigated. There is an emergence for it to be explored.
References
Bond, A. and Stewart, G. (2002). Environment agency scoping guidance on the environmental impact assessment of projects. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 20(2), pp.135-142.
Bruns, J., Riesterer, J., Wang, B., Riedel, T. and Beigl, M. (2018). Automated Quality Assessment of (Citizen) Weather Stations. GI_Forum, 1, pp.65-81.
Curini, L. and Jou, W. (2016). The conditional impact of winner/loser status and ideological proximity on citizen participation. European Journal of Political Research, 55(4), pp.767-788.
Chang, I. (2018). Environmental Impact Assessment Review | ScienceDirect.com. [online] Sciencedirect.com. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/environmental-impact-assessment-review [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].
Chukwuma Sr., C. (2007). [online] Tandfonline.com. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207239608711056 [Accessed 29 Aug. 2018].
Davids, J., Rutten, M., Pandey, A., Devkota, N., van Oyen, W., Prajapati, R. and van de Giesen, N. (2018). Citizen science flow – an assessment of citizen science streamflowmeasurement methods. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, pp.1-28.
Eckerd, A. (2016). Citizen Language and Administrative Response. Administration & Society, 49(3), pp.348-373.
Enick, O. and Moore, M. (2007). Assessing the assessments: Pharmaceuticals in the environment. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 27(8), pp.707-729.
Felicetti, A. (2014). Citizen Forums in the Deliberative System. Democratic Theory, 1(2).
Hunsberger, C., Gibson, R. and Wismer, S. (2005). Citizen involvement in sustainability-centred environmental assessment follow-up. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 25(6), pp.609-627.
Keen, M. and Sullivan, M. (2005). Aiding the environment: the Australian Development Agency’s experience of implementing an environmental management system. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 25(6), pp.628-649.
Martin, P. and Claibourn, M. (2013). Citizen Participation and Congressional Responsiveness: New Evidence that Participation Matters. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 38(1), pp.59-81.
Morrison-Saunders, A. and Bailey, J. (2000). Transparency in environment impact assessment decision-making: recent developments in Western Australia. Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 18(4), pp.260-270.
Negev, M., Davidovitch, N., Garb, Y. and Tal, A. (2013). Stakeholder participation in health impact assessment: A multicultural approach. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 43, pp.112-120.
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